The phonebook plays a significant role in mobile communications. It is the source of the contact information for phone calls, text messages, faxes, instant messages and emails. A challenge in the mobile phone market is inserting, updating, and maintaining contact information stored in the phonebook. Currently, one must manually enter phone numbers into one's mobile phone. This takes time, is often difficult with such small buttons and screens on phones, and is prone to errors with manual data entry. Often, the result is that many individuals do not enter contact information in their mobile phonebooks.
In addition, these problems restrict the user from adding alternate phone numbers (e.g. business phone, home phone, and fax) associated with a contact, even though today's phonebooks can support multiple numbers. With the growth of more sophisticated phones (e.g. Smart Phones, IP phones, and Internet capable phones) there is also a need to store email addresses and Instant Message (IM) addresses of contacts. Entering email and IM addresses, however, can be even more problematic than entering phone numbers.
Another problem for users today is the inability to control the distribution of contact information to others. For example, one might provide a mobile phone number or business telephone number to another person but not want to provide their home telephone number. Thus, users continue to face many problems in using and benefiting from the capabilities of a device phonebook.